rust

On this subject - does anyone know whether, having bought a PDF, it is then legal to get a copy (just one) printed off professionally?

According to the FAQ-page of Drive Thru RPG you can have a copy printed

at a copyshop.

(I would provide a link, but Drive Thru RPG has recently started a German

version, and now I can no longer access the English one ...)

My book is Ashes, to Ashes.

Sorry for your head, but ... fantasy ... wizards ... ;-(

It's a bit offputting to keep reading about how there's no support or no settings for BRP while a pile of my 180 page setting books sit here looking at me.

Perhaps I somehow missed your book, or I am unable to make the connection

between the book and your forum name - but if it is science fiction, you only

have to tell me where and how to buy it.

However, if it happens to be fantasy ... I am sorry ...

Well, you see, a certain kind of player loves to kill Orcs and hates to climb

walls - for them, killing Orcs is always "cool" (no matter the reason, or the

absence of a reason), while climbing walls is not.

To quote Ron Edwards, in a Forge article on Simulationism:

Pound for pound, Basic Role-Playing from The Chaosium is perhaps the most

important system, publishing tradition, and intellectual engine in the hobby -

yes, even more than D&D. It represents the first and arguably the most

lasting, influential form of uncompromising Simulationist design.

Approximately what diameter were these clay balls?

If I do not misunderstand the texts, they usually had a diameter of 30 mm to

50 mm, although there are also historical pictures of much larger objects.

How would you, as a GM, respond to this (if different from the last question)?

It would depend on the specific situation (for example the kind of monster

involved), but in general I would make it a Difficult action and give the cha-

racter a significant chance to wound his friend.

What is shot? A metal ball?

Yep, usually made of lead, with a weight of up to 400 g (at least accor-

ding to the archaeological digs over here - the true experts from the Ba-

learic Islands perhaps used different ones), and often with "funny" in-

scriptions (like "Catch That !").

Slingers could also throw hollow clay balls filled with some burning sub-

stance and several other types of "special ammunition".

No-one is going to consistently hit a human-sized target with a composite bow at 500m or so.

I think so, too. The fact that the Mongolians, doubtless among the finest ar-

chers of history, erected a monument to an archer who hit a target at some-

what more than 500 m shows that this was a truly extraordinary feat (that

he was Gengis Khan's nephew might also have helped somewhat ...).

I don't know about halving damage either. Sending an arrow on a rainbow arch toward a target, even at 300 yds away, should still be doing better damage than that. To me, just hitting the target is the real challenge, though a minus of 1 or 2 pts of damage makes sense. I'd go half at Long Range, where you'd have to be hoping to get a special success to actually do serious damage.

In the last one of our historical settings we distinguished between "ballistic"

and "line of sight" arrows.

The "ballistic" arrows, basically the "artillery" of the setting, did full damage

against unarmoured targets (including horses) and half damage against ar-

moured targets at long range, the "line of sight" arrows all did half damage

at long range.

However, I do not remember how and why we came to this rule.

Effective bowmen also required good training and tactics.

If I remember it right, the English had a saying that if you wanted to train

a longbowman, you had to start by training his grandfather.

As far as I know, this was one of the main reasons for the replacement of

the longbow by the musket around the time of the Thirty Years War, when

the longbow still was far more efficient and precise and had a much higher

rate of fire than any of the firearms of the time.

It was simply much easier to train a unit of musketeers to the point where

they could be used in battle than to spend the long time needed to train

a unit of longbowmen.

And time was most important when huge numbers of soldiers had to be hi-

red only a very short time before a campaign, because none of the parties

of this war had the finances necessary to keep a standing army big enough

for its needs - even Spain and Sweden finally had to hire mercenaries.

It depends a lot on what kind of composite bow you are thinking of, as there

are huge differences in construction and performance.

If you are thinking of the Mongolian composite bow, most probably the best

of all, these quotes may help:

An inscription on a stone stele was found near Nerchinsk in Siberia: "While Chinggis Khan was holding an assembly of Mongolian dignitaries, after his conquest of Sartaul (East Turkestan), Yesüngge (the son of Chinggis Khan's brother) shot a target at 335 alds (536 m)."

In the historical novel "Khökh Sudar" Injinashi, the Mongolian philosopher, historian and writer, imagines the competition amongst all Mongolian men in about 1194-1195: five archers each hit the target three times from a distance of 500 bows (1 bow = at least 1 metre).

Also, don't belittle the work of the people who put out ... Outpost 19 ...

In my view, Outpost 19 is an excellent example of the kind of material I would

consider most useful to support BRP: A very good adventure with enough set-

ting information, even including some new rules and equipment, to continue

from there with your own campaign, if you want - and at a very reasonable

price.

It's a different way of thinking which seems to be pretty prevalent among gamers that a system is "dead" if it's not producing regular supplements or new editions.

I would not consider it "dead" as a roleplaying game, but I would indeed con-

sider it quite "dead" as a commercial product.

And while I do not need supplements, especially not regular supplements, I

would indeed appreciate at least some genre specific material and some ad-

ventures now and then.

True, I can write all the necessary stuff myself, but some input from other

sources is always welcome to complement my own imagination and add de-

tails to my setting and campaign I would not have thought of myself.

Plus, both my creativity and my time are limited, and I really like it if others

do some of the work for me, enabling me to concentrate more on my setting

and campaign specific stuff - I would even pay them for writing useful mate-

rial ...

Whether this material comes from Chaosium or third party publishers is not

important for me, provided it is published in a way that makes it easy for

me to buy and use it.

This may seem a bit strange, but the true answer is: I am not sure.

There was no specific idea I noted and adapted for my setting, but in my

experience ideas have a tendency to disappear somewhere in my mind,

combine with other ideas, change their shape, and then resurface weeks

or months later without being recognized by me.

So, while I did not consciously use anything from Aurora, it may very well

be that some of its ideas will influence what I tend to take for my own in-

ventions ...

There is perhaps no problem for you fantasy guys, but over here on the

science fiction side we do not exactly have lots of material to support

BRP ...

Thank you for the link.

This gadget somehow reminds me of a Shadowrun drone.

You are welcome.

There will be geneered plants and animals, but only comparatively primitive

ones.

The "green" part of the terraforming starts with various strains of bacteria

which generate oxygen and begin to turn the rock and sand into soil. The

bacteria will be followed by lichens, then hardy cacti, succulents and plants

like tumbleweed and thistles, and finally a full array of desert and steppe

plants - all over a time of about 150 years.

The first geneered animals will also be very primitive ones, like the desert

woodlice (I think that is what they are called in English) on the picture be-

low, and then the food chain will be built upon them, beginning with lizards,

rodents and so on.

Geneering comparatively primitive plants and animals is well within the capa-

bilities of my setting's science and technology, but geneering humans would

be both extremely difficult and illegal.

Thank you very much.

"Roleplaying in a world of real science" reads very promising, I will give it a close look very soon.

Quite useful and completely free:

DriveThruRPG.com - Expeditious Retreat Press - A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping

I'm delighted to report that Chaosium have settled all issues with me, and I'm going to be back to work on Interplanetary this very evening.

And I am truly delighted to read this.

It feels bizarre to quote myself, but I am happy to report that Charlie and Chaosium have taken all steps to mend the fence, and I'm getting back to work on Interplanetary this very evening.

Very good news indeed.

Its of topic i now, but this was also released in 1977 and it is science fiction, even today its still fresh.

Thank you again - and nothing that could serve as an inspiration can ever

be off topic for me.

They aren't an indie publisher, they are the oldest company on the market since TSR disappeared as a brand.

No, not really, there are several companies alive and well that are older than,

or at least as old as, Chaosium - for example Flying Buffalo and Fantasy Ga-

mes Unlimited, to name just two of them.